Without either sign or sound of their shock,
The waves flowed over the Inchcape Rock;
So little they rose, so little they fell,
They did not move the Inchcape Bell.
The waves flowed over the Inchcape Rock;
So little they rose, so little they fell,
They did not move the Inchcape Bell.
Warner - World's Best Literature - v23 - Sha to Sta
He returns
conscience-smitten with the bow and arrows and restores them to
their owner, in spite of the anxious protest of Ulysses, who knows
that his own life now hangs upon a thread. But Neoptolemus holds
the hand that would draw the bow and slay his enemy, and appeals
on the ground of friendship and of generosity to Philoctetes now to
yield and return with him as ally to Troy. But here he meets with
an equally stubborn resistance; and, vanquished by the vanquished
man, he has submitted, and is going to bring Philoctetes to his home
at Trachis, when the divine command of Heracles prevents this vio-
lation of the current story, and the conflict is ended by the submis-
sion of Philoctetes.
## p. 13673 (#495) ##########################################
SOPHOCLES
13673
Such is the skeleton of the drama; but this skeleton is enriched
by the accessories which a true poet adds to his argument. The
picturesque features of the lonely island, the voice of nature which
threatened and which solaced the lonely man, the birds and beasts
that were his companions and his prey,- these are ever present to
the hero in his lamentations and his prayers. No doubt the poet
knew well this island, which was, like Imbros, a peculiar property of
the Athenians for a great part of its history. It lies not far from the
Trojan coast, surrounded by splendid historic lands: the giant Samo-
thrace, the still more gigantic Athos, from whose peak I have looked
upon Lemnos and thought of the many legends that cluster about that
rugged island. And now, after long centuries of cultivation, centu-
ries of piracy and of misgovernment have reduced it again to the
very condition described by Sophocles: lonely uplands, windy hills,
waste and thicket replacing the labors of men.
It is remarkable that the rival plays on the subject those of
Eschylus and Euripides-did not make the island an absolute wil-
derness. The chorus, instead of representing the sailors who came
with Neoptolemus, as it is in Sophocles's play, did visit him; and one
of them, Actor, appeared as his friend. These facts we owe to an
interesting little oration of Dio Chrysostom, who compares the three
plays then extant and known to him.
-
But I will not extend this commentary unduly. Those who desire
to appreciate Sophocles must not attempt to do so at second hand,
through this essay or through any modern translation; they must
learn Greek, and read him in the original: for no version in any
European language can give any notion of the strength, the grace,
the suppleness of his dialogue. Not that he was absolutely without
faults in style. He himself, in a curious sentence reported by Plu-
tarch, says that he had three styles: first, the grand eloquence of
Eschylus, which he had shaken off early; then the harsh and artifi-
cial style of his next epoch, - features well known to us in contem-
porary writers, such as Thucydides; lastly he had adopted the style
which was best for painting character, and therefore the fittest for
his purpose.
We can still trace some of the harshness of which he
speaks in the earlier extant plays. The opening speech in the
'Antigone,' for example, is contorted and difficult in style, and is by
no means exceptional in this quality. Some of the choral odes seem
to us to use constructions which we can hardly call Greek; and if it
be urged that in these cases corruption of the text has altered the
poet's words, it must have been a very early corruption, and such is
not likely unless the original was really obscure. We know also
from the great number of strange words cited from his lost plays by
early grammarians that his vocabulary must have been not easy and
## p. 13674 (#496) ##########################################
13674
SOPHOCLES
natural, like that of Euripides, but artificial and recondite. This love
of erudite words seems to have been as strong in Sophocles as it
was in Shakespeare.
But if he was licentious in his vocabulary and sometimes daring in
his syntax, no great poet was ever more conservative in his art. It
is to us an ever-recurring source of wonder, how a great poet, born
in a particular generation, writing for a special public, hampered
by all the conventionalities of his age, nevertheless not only rises
above all these transitory circumstances and seizes the great and
permanent features of human nature, but even frequently turns his
shackles into a new source of beauty. Some of the greatest felici-
ties in poetry have been the direct result of the curbs of metre or
of rhyme. Nothing has more evidently determined the beauties of
Greek or mediæval sculpture than its position as the handmaid of
architecture. There are many more such instances, but none more
signal than that supplied by the work of Sophocles.
Nothing can be imagined more artificial than the Greek stage,
nothing upon that stage more artificial than tragedy as determined
by his predecessors. The subjects to be treated were limited to the
Greek legends; legends familiar to the audience, and not admitting
of any great liberties in treatment. The actors were padded out and
masked, so that all delicate acting was impossible, and slow declama-
tion was the law of the stage. The importance of the chorus and
its traditional primacy in the earliest plays determined the musical
character of Greek tragedy; which may best be compared to a mod-
ern oratorio, acted on the stage. Thus the poet must not only write
dramatic verse, he must be a lyric poet; nay more, we are told that
he must compose the music for his odes. Even these set pieces, like
our musical interludes, were not enough for the requirements of the
drama: there were lyrical monodies, or dialogues between the actor
and the chorus, which required in the actor-in early days the poet
himself - proficiency in singing. It was in fact the "music-drama "
of Wagner, out-Wagnered. All these conditions were satisfied by
Sophocles in his day. But what marks his world-position is this:
though the music is lost; though the stage as he knew it is gone
forever; though nothing remains to us but the text, in metres which
had their musical accompaniments and which do not speak easily to
modern ears,-still these plays, stripped of all the accessories which
made them splendid in their day of performance, transcribed with
ignorance and defaced by time, the widowed and forlorn remnant
of a bygone age and an extinct society, move every modern heart;
stimulate every modern poet; stand forth in their imperishable maj-
esty, like the ruined Parthenon, unapproachable in their essential per-
fection.
## p. 13675 (#497) ##########################################
SOPHOCLES
13675
1
What an age was this, when the builders of the Parthenon and
the authors of tragedy met and discussed the principles of their art!
The lofty Pericles was there, the genial Herodotus, the brilliant Aris-
tophanes, the homely Socrates, all contributing to form an atmo-
sphere in which no poor or unreal art could last for a day. But
artificial they all were, except Socrates; though the artifice was only
the vehicle for great ideas, for the deepest nature, for the loftiest
ideals. Hence the changes of custom, and even of traditions, have
not marred the eternal greatness of Sophocles's tragedies. Sufferers
such as Ajax, Philoctetes, Œdipus, will ever command the deepest
human pity; martyrs such as Antigone, the purest admiration. To
paraphrase the words of Aristotle, Sophocles purifies the affections of
pity and awe in the hearts of his audience by representing to them
ideal men and women suffering huge misfortunes; broken it may be
on the wheel of fortune, but not vanquished, because their heroic will
is invincible.
This is the great moral lesson which the poet has taught the
world; and it constitutes his first and greatest claim to rank among
the stars of the first magnitude in the literature of nations. In the-
ology he was a conservative; he did not venture, like Euripides, to
quarrel with the current myths and to question the morality of the
current creeds. But even as every sound modern moralist holds
that in this world, the ideal of life and conduct is far higher than
the average specimens we meet in ordinary society,—so Sophocles
was convinced that there was a Divine morality, a Divine justice, far
higher and purer than the lives and characters of the several gods as
represented in Homer and the Epic Cycle. While therefore he does
not alter the hard features of the Greek gods, or justify their jealousy
and vindictiveness, he frequently asserts a very different and a far
higher government of the world.
Such being the highest feature in the poet's philosophy, we may
place next to it his admirable knowledge and portraiture of human
character. The gallery of his heroes and heroines is like the gallery
of a great painter's works, which gives us impressive and imperisha-
ble types. He takes but little care about his villains: his tyrants
were not drawn from life, and his only erring queen - Clytemnestra
-is not very interesting when we compare her to the Clytemnestra
of Eschylus. But his heroines are as great as those of Euripides;
his heroes are far greater; and his whole stage is more human than
that of Eschylus.
Apart from the matter is the style; and in artistic work the style
or form is of equal if not of greater importance. It is through style.
that any writer or age of writers becomes a model, or an ideal, for
succeeding generations to pursue. But as I am debarred in this
## p. 13676 (#498) ##########################################
13676
SOPHOCLES
essay from quoting from the original, and am addressing a public not
intimate with Greek, I am precluded from discussing this question
with any further detail; and can only repeat my previous warning
that Greek of the Attic age, used by its greatest masters, is a vehicle
of expression so perfect both in its strength and its delicacy, that all
versions in other tongues seem tame and bald to those who can read
the poet's own words. It is this peerless perfection in Greek style,
not only in the art of composition, but in the plastic arts, which has
kept Greek studies alive as the very essence of any thorough modern
culture. Nor is it likely that a time will ever come when future
generations will have made such advances in art that the Edipus
of Sophocles, the Hermes of Praxiteles, the nameless tomb of the
King of Sidon, the temples on the Acropolis at Athens, will be super-
seded by greater models.
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## p. 13676 (#499) ##########################################
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13677
ROBERT SOUTHEY
(1774-1843)
F IT were possible to earn a place among the immortals by
the force of unremitting toil, no man of letters could have a
clearer claim to the distinction than Robert Southey. The
vast labors of his life, seconding talents of no mean order, did indeed
build for him a reputation which cannot be destroyed by time. What
the author of Thalaba' and the Life of Nelson' accomplished, has
a definite and solid value. Within his limits he did his life's work
well. He was a good and faithful servant of literature: had he had
more of the mastery of genius, he would have been less in bondage
to his conceptions. As it was, he was fettered by the schemes for
his vast epics and interminable histories. The element of drudgery
dulls even the greatest of his works. He is among English men of
letters as one that serveth.
His life touched at many points the lives of other noted men; yet
it was ever self-contained, closed in against all passions but the one
devouring passion for culture. There was a Southey who, feeling the
electric currents of the revolution, dreamed of brotherhood and free-
dom in the forests of America: but the Southey of literary history
spent his life among his thousands of beloved books in the quiet
rooms of Greta Hall, content with the use and wont of the Old
World; content to perform, year in and year out, the daily tasks of
composition, proof-reading, and letter-writing. The poet had become
the sober writer of prose; the revolutionist had become the conserv-
ative.
Robert Southey was born on the 12th of August, 1774. His father,
a linen draper, being unsuccessful in his business, the care and sup-
port of the boy was partly assumed by his mother's maiden aunt,
Miss Tyler, an eccentric woman, who was wise enough however
to feed her charge's mind with such tales as 'Goody Two-Shoes'
and the History of the Seven Champions of England'; she further
trained the future poet in the way he should go, by taking him to
the theatre, and by allowing him to enter into the enchanted world
of Beaumont and Fletcher, and to wander along the broad human
highways of Shakespeare.
He was early taken from these most beautiful and tender nurses
of genius, and delivered over to schoolmasters to be "regularly"
## p. 13678 (#504) ##########################################
13678
ROBERT SOUTHEY
educated. Great institutions of learning do not always know how
to conduct the education of a poet. Westminster School rejected
Southey after four years of nurture, because the boy wrote a sarcas-
tic article on flogging, for the paper published by the pupils. Two
enduring friendships, however, were formed at Westminster: one with
Grosvenor Bedford, the other with C. W. Wynn. It was through the
liberality of the latter that an annuity of £160 was for many years
settled upon Southey. Through provision made by his uncle, the
Rev. Mr. Hill, chaplain to the British factory at Lisbon, Southey was
enabled to go to Oxford. Christ Church rejected him because of
the Westminster episode, but he was received at Balliol.
In 1794 occurred an event of much importance in his life: he met
Coleridge. With the mystical poet, "voyaging on strange seas of
thought alone," the young Southey had much in common. They
were both under the domination of the republican spirit; they had
both looked to France for the dawn of the social millennium, and had
beheld only the terrors of the midnight tempest. They both dreamed
of a world made over nearer to the heart's desire. Coleridge had
already formulated his dreams. They should go to America: there in
the virgin forests they could free themselves forever from the perni-
cious social system of the Old World. They would live as brothers.
Each would till the soil, living by the work of his own hands. Each
would take with him a wife who should share the toil and the bless-
ings. They would rear their children in innocence and peace. They
would live the ideal life of study and of manual labor in the bosom
of nature. Their community would be a "pantisocracy. " Coleridge
and Southey had friends ready and willing to make the venture,-
Robert Lovell, a young Quaker; Robert Allen, and George Burnett.
Lovell's wife had four sisters, - Edith, Sarah, Martha, and Elizabeth
Fricker. An idea prevailed among the pantisocrats that these ladies
might be married off-hand, the only inducement necessary being a
glowing description of the land of promise. Southey, however, had
another object in marrying than the good of the new community.
He loved Edith Fricker, and she returned his affection.
Nothing was lacking now to the perfect success of the scheme but
money. The young enthusiasts were rich in dreams, but poor in
pocket. Coleridge never had money in his life. The others, being
also of the poetical temperament, could never have much of it.
Southey and Coleridge began a series of lectures, the one on history,
the other on ethics and politics, for the sake of raising the necessary
funds. About this time Southey met Joseph Cottle, a Bristol book-
seller, whose sincere friendship manifested itself in substantial forms.
Two years before, in 1794, Southey had written an epic, 'Joan of Arc,'
in which he had embodied his democratic fervor. Cottle bought this
## p. 13679 (#505) ##########################################
ROBERT SOUTHEY
13679
of him for fifty guineas, and published it in 1796. The assistance.
was timely; for the young poet was in disgrace with Miss Tyler,
who had cast him out on the news of his intended marriage with
Miss Fricker.
Soon after the publication of Joan of Arc,' Southey's uncle, Mr.
Hill, arrived from Lisbon; having heard of his nephew's vagaries,
and believing that a change of scene would bring about a change of
mind, he induced him to return with him. On the day of his depart-
ure he was secretly married to Edith. He returned, cured of pan-
tisocracy, but with his mind full of poetical schemes: epics galore,
tragedies and comedies and romances, which were to be wrought out
one by one. Among the first of these to be completed was 'Madoc,'
a narrative poem of the adventures of a Welsh prince of the twelfth
century in the wilderness of America. He had been meanwhile for a
year in London crucifying his spirit over law-books. After leaving
London and the law, he wandered through England for a time, finally
settling at Norwich, where he spent twelve months.
The breaking
down of his health led to a second visit to Portugal, on which his
wife accompanied him. On his return he was offered the position
of private secretary to Mr. Corry, Chancellor of the Exchequer for
Ireland. He accepted it; but the post not proving a congenial one,
he soon returned to England, and not long afterwards took up his
abode in Greta Hall, Keswick, in the English Lake region, where he
was to spend the remainder of his life,-supporting himself, his fam-
ily, and Coleridge's family, by his incessant literary labors.
It is in the household of Greta Hall that the greater Southey,
Southey the man, comes into clear view; he is seen here as the lov-
ing father and husband, as the kind kinsman of the Coleridge child-
ren, as the friend ever ready with words of sympathy, advice, and
encouragement. A remarkable family of children was gathered under
his roof. There were his own brilliant, beautiful Herbert, Edith May,
Bertha, Kate, and Isabel; there was the marvelous child, the elfish
Hartley Coleridge; there were also his brother Derwent, and Sara
Coleridge, who had inherited not a small share of her father's genius.
There was besides a large colony of cats, whose high-sounding names
Southey has recorded in his 'Chronicle History of the Cattery of
Cat's Eden. '
In 1813 Southey was appointed to the office of Poet Laureate,
made vacant by the death of Pye. At that date his more important
works included his metrical romance of Thalaba the Destroyer,' the
romance of 'Amadis de Gaul' from a Spanish version, 'The Chronicle
of the Cid, 'The Curse of Kehama,' 'Espriella's Letters,' and the
'History of Portugal' begun but not finished. In 1807 he had pro-
duced Specimens of the Later English Poets,' and 'Palmerin of
## p. 13680 (#506) ##########################################
13680
ROBERT SOUTHEY
His Poet-Laureateship
Southey seems to have
Portugal,' a translation from the Portuguese.
was the recognition of his youthful work.
renounced poetry with his republicanism. The odes which he wrote
in his official character are forced in tone, and with exception of the
'Funeral Song for the Princess Charlotte,' commonplace. After tak-
ing up his abode in Greta Hall, Southey devoted himself chiefly to
prose composition. He wrote there his 'History of Brazil,' his 'His-
tory of Portugal,' his lives of Wesley, of Cowper, and of Nelson, his
commonplace books, his History of the Peninsular War,' and that
charming book of gossip, 'The Doctor. ' His prose is masterly, direct,
and even. His claim to be numbered among the foremost English
men of letters rests indeed upon his prose.
The events of his life at Keswick are chiefly those of a student
and a scholar. For many years it was necessary that he should
write incessantly, performing his day-labor like a workman in the
fields. After this necessity was removed, he still toiled on, finding
his greatest pleasure in the companionship of his books, and of his
friends, among whom were Charles Lamb, Wordsworth, and Landor.
His reputation attracted to him men of the highest intellectual rank;
even one man as far removed from him in thought and feeling as
the poet Shelley. Southey was never slow to recognize genius and
to befriend it; but with certain literary movements in England he
had little sympathy. His designation of Byron and his coterie as
the "Satanic School" was not the least just, as it was the most un-
friendly, of his criticisms. For the work of Wordsworth, of Landor,
and of Lamb, he had unqualified admiration.
In 1816 Southey was offered a baronetcy through the influence of
Sir Robert Peel; but he declined the honor. In 1826 he was offered a
seat in Parliament, and an estate to qualify him for the office; but this
he also declined. Oxford conferred upon him the degree of LL. D. ;
he refused a similar honor from Cambridge.
His later years were darkened by domestic afflictions. The light of
his life went out when his son Herbert, a child of the rarest promise,
passed away. His second marriage in 1839, to the writer Caroline
Anne Bowles, was one of convenience. For a year or two before his
death the vigor of his faculties was almost wholly departed. He died
on the 21st of March, 1843, literally worn out by brain labor.
As Mr. Dowden, in his life of Southey, points out, the literary
career of the poet falls into two periods: a period during which he
devoted himself chiefly to poetry, and a later period during which
prose occupied the first place.
Southey's poetry is not of the first rank. It is too intentional and
well-ordered. He had not the imagination to cope with the subject-
matter of his epics,- which, as in 'Thalaba' and 'Kehama,' is taken
## p. 13681 (#507) ##########################################
ROBERT SOUTHEY
13681
from wild Arabian legends, or as in "Roderick,' from the dim rich
pages of mediæval chronicle. His simple, serious spirit expresses
itself most adequately in his ballads, and in such poems as 'The
Battle of Blenheim,' 'The Complaints of the Poor,' and in the quiet,
measured verse of the 'Inscriptions. ' His prose has more of the
light of inspiration. Its sustained, sober excellence is well adapted to
the long-drawn-out impersonal narratives which Southey could handle
with so much skill and ease. He united the patience of the media-
val chronicler with the culture of the modern historian. He wrote,
in the sober temper of the scholar, of "old, unhappy, far-off things,
and battles long ago. " For him the fever had departed from them.
He was not a dramatist in his conception of history. What had been
done had been done, and he recorded it impassionately. Yet he was
not without keen sympathies, as his Life of Cowper' and his 'Life
of Nelson' show. Southey as a biographer reveals his own high
standards of life, his love of equity, his appreciation of noble achieve-
ment wherever found, his belief in character as the basis of well-
being. He himself was altogether true-hearted. The manliness which
pervades all his works makes large compensation for the lack of the
divine spark of genius.
THE HOLLY-TREE
O
READER! hast thou ever stood to see
The Holly-tree?
The eye that contemplates it well perceives
Its glossy leaves,
Ordered by an Intelligence so wise
As might confound the Atheist's sophistries.
Below a circling fence its leaves are seen,
Wrinkled and keen;
No grazing cattle through their prickly round
Can reach to wound;
But as they grow where nothing is to fear,
Smooth and unarmed the pointless leaves appear.
XXIII-856
I love to view these things with curious eyes,
And moralize;
And in this wisdom of the Holly-tree
Can emblem see
Wherewith perchance to make a pleasant rhyme,
One which may profit in the after-time.
## p. 13682 (#508) ##########################################
13682
ROBERT SOUTHEY
Thus though abroad perchance I might appear
Harsh and austere,
To those who on my leisure would intrude
Reserved and rude,-
Gentle at home amid my friends I'd be,
Like the high leaves upon the Holly-tree.
And should my youth-as youth is apt, I know-
Some harshness show,
All vain asperities I day by day
Would wear away,
Till the smooth temper of my age should be
Like the high leaves upon the Holly-tree.
And as, when all the summer trees are seen
So bright and green,
The Holly leaves a sober hue display
Less bright than they,
But when the bare and wintry woods we see,
What then so cheerful as the Holly-tree? —
So serious should my youth appear among
The thoughtless throng;
So would I seem, amid the young and gay,
More grave than they,
That in my age as cheerful I might be
As the green winter of the Holly-tree.
STANZAS WRITTEN IN MY LIBRARY
Y DAYS among the Dead are passed;
Around me I behold,
Where'er these casual eyes are cast,
The mighty minds of old;
My never-failing friends are they,
With whom I converse day by day.
Μ'
With them I take delight in weal,
And seek relief in woe;
And while I understand and feel
How much to them I owe,
My cheeks have often been bedewed
With tears of thoughtful gratitude.
## p. 13683 (#509) ##########################################
ROBERT SOUTHEY
13683
My thoughts are with the Dead; with them
I live in long-past years,
Their virtues love, their faults condemn,
Partake their hopes and fears,
And from their lessons seek and find
Instruction with a humble mind.
My hopes are with the Dead: anon
My place with them will be,
And I with them shall travel on
Through all futurity;
Yet leaving here a name, I trust,
That will not perish in the dust.
THE INCHCAPE ROCK
N°
O STIR in the air, no stir in the sea:
The ship was still as she could be;
Her sails from heaven received no motion;
Her keel was steady in the ocean.
Without either sign or sound of their shock,
The waves flowed over the Inchcape Rock;
So little they rose, so little they fell,
They did not move the Inchcape Bell.
The Abbot of Aberbrothok
Had placed that Bell on the Inchcape Rock;
On a buoy in the storm it floated and swung,
And over the waves its warning rung.
When the Rock was hid by the surge's swell,
The mariners heard the warning Bell;
And then they knew the perilous Rock,
And blest the Abbot of Aberbrothok.
The sun in heaven was shining gay;
All things were joyful on that day;
The sea-birds screamed as they wheeled round,
And there was joyance in their sound.
The buoy of the Inchcape Bell was seen,
A darker speck on the ocean green:
Sir Ralph the Rover walked his deck,
And he fixed his eye on the darker speck.
## p. 13684 (#510) ##########################################
13684
ROBERT SOUTHEY
He felt the cheering power of spring;
It made him whistle, it made him sing:
His heart was mirthful to excess,
But the Rover's mirth was wickedness.
His eye was on the Inchcape float;
Quoth he, "My men, put out the boat,
And row me to the Inchcape Rock,
And I'll plague the Abbot of Aberbrothok. "
The boat is lowered, the boatmen row,
And to the Inchcape Rock they go;
Sir Ralph bent over from the boat,
And he cut the Bell from the Inchcape float.
Down sunk the Bell with a gurgling sound;
The bubbles rose and burst around:
Quoth Sir Ralph, "The next who comes to the Rock
Won't bless the Abbot of Aberbrothok. "
Sir Ralph the Rover sailed away;
He scoured the seas for many a day:
And now, grown rich with plundered store,
He steers his course for Scotland's shore.
So thick a haze o'erspreads the sky,
They cannot see the sun on high:
The wind hath blown a gale all day;
At evening it hath died away.
On the deck the Rover takes his stand:
So dark it is, they see no land.
Quoth Sir Ralph, "It will be lighter soon,
For there is the dawn of the rising moon. "
"Canst hear," said one, "the breakers roar?
For methinks we should be near the shore. "
"Now where we are I cannot tell,
But I wish I could hear the Inchcape Bell. "
-
They hear no sound; the swell is strong;
Though the wind hath fallen, they drift along,
Till the vessel strikes with a shivering shock:
"O Christ! it is the Inchcape Rock! "
Sir Ralph the Rover tore his hair,
He curst himself in his despair:
## p. 13685 (#511) ##########################################
ROBERT SOUTHEY
13685
The waves rush in on every side;
The ship is sinking beneath the tide.
But even in his dying fear,
One dreadful sound could the Rover hear,—
A sound as if, with the Inchcape Bell,
The Devil below was ringing his knell.
THE BATTLE OF BLENHEIM
T WAS a summer evening;
IT Old Kaspar's work was done,
And he before his cottage door
Was sitting in the sun;
And by him sported on the green
His little grandchild Wilhelmine.
She saw her brother Peterkin
Roll something large and round,
Which he beside the rivulet
In playing there had found;
He came to ask what he had found,
That was so large and smooth and round.
Old Kaspar took it from the boy,
Who stood expectant by;
And then the old man shook his head,
And with a natural sigh,-
Tis some poor fellow's skull," said he,
"Who fell in the great victory.
"I find them in the garden,
For there's many hereabout;
And often when I go to plow,
The plowshare turns them out:
For many thousand men," said he,
"Were slain in that great victory. "
"Now tell us what 'twas all about,"
Young Peterkin he cries;
And little Wilhelmine looks up
With wonder-waiting eyes:-
"Now tell us all about the war,
And what they fought each other for. "
―
## p. 13686 (#512) ##########################################
13686
ROBERT SOUTHEY
"It was the English," Kaspar cried,
"Who put the French to rout;
But what they fought each other for,
I could not well make out:
But everybody said," quoth he,
"That 'twas a famous victory.
My father lived at Blenheim then,
Yon little stream hard by:
They burnt his dwelling to the ground,
And he was forced to fly;
So with his wife and child he fled,
Nor had he where to rest his head.
"With fire and sword the country round
Was wasted far and wide;
And many a childing mother then,
And new-born baby, died:
But things like that, you know, must be
At every famous victory.
"They say it was a shocking sight
After the field was won;
For many thousand bodies here
Lay rotting in the sun:
But things like that, you know, must be,
After a famous victory.
"Great praise the Duke of Marlborough won,
And our good Prince Eugene. "
"Why, 'twas a very wicked thing! "
Said little Wilhelmine.
"Nay, nay, my little girl," quoth he:
"It was a famous victory,
"And everybody praised the Duke,
Who this great fight did win. "
"But what good came of it at last? "
Quoth little Peterkin.
"Why, that I cannot tell," said he;
"But 'twas a famous victory. "
## p. 13687 (#513) ##########################################
ROBERT SOUTHEY
13687
THE OLD WOMAN OF BERKELEY
A BALLAD, SHOWING HOW AN OLD WOMAN RODE DOUBLE, AND WHO
RODE BEFORE HER
THE
HE Raven croaked as she sate at her meal,
And the Old Woman knew what he said·
And she grew pale at the Raven's tale,
And sickened, and went to her bed.
"Now fetch me my children, and fetch them with speed,"
The Old Woman of Berkeley said;
"The Monk my son, and my daughter the Nun,
Bid them hasten, or I shall be dead. ”
The Monk her son, and her daughter the Nun,
Their way to Berkeley went;
And they have brought, with pious thought,
The holy sacrament.
The Old Woman shrieked as they entered her door,
And she cried with a voice of despair,
"Now take away the sacrament,
For its presence I cannot bear! "
Her lip it trembled with agony;
The sweat ran down her brow:
"I have tortures in store for evermore;
But spare me, my children, now! "
Away they sent the sacrament:
The fit it left her weak;
She looked at her children with ghastly eyes,
And faintly struggled to speak.
"All kind of sin I have rioted in,
And the judgment now must be;
But I secured my children's souls:
Oh, pray, my children, for me!
"I have 'nointed myself with infants' fat;
The fiends have been my slaves;
From sleeping babes I have sucked the breath;
And breaking by charms the sleep of death,
I have called the dead from their graves.
## p. 13688 (#514) ##########################################
13688
ROBERT SOUTHEY
"And the Devil will fetch me now in fire,
My witchcrafts to atone;
And I, who have troubled the dead man's grave,
Shall never have rest in my own.
"Bless, I entreat, my winding-sheet,
My children, I beg of you;
And with holy-water sprinkle my shroud,
And sprinkle my coffin too.
"And let me be chained in my coffin of stone;
And fasten it strong, I implore,
With iron bars, and with three chains
Chain it to the church-floor.
"And bless the chains, and sprinkle them;
And let fifty Priests stand round,
Who night and day the Mass may say
Where I lie on the ground.
"And see that fifty Choristers
Beside the bier attend me,
And day and night, by the tapers' light,
With holy hymns defend me.
"Let the church-bells all, both great and small,
Be tolled by night and day,
To drive from thence the fiends who come
To bear my body away.
"And ever have the church-door barred
After the even-song;
And I beseech you, children dear,
Let the bars and bolts be strong.
"And let this be three days and nights,
My wretched corpse to save;
Till the fourth morning keep me safe,
And then I may rest in my grave. "
The Old Woman of Berkeley laid her down,
And her eyes grew deadly dim;
Short came her breath, and the struggle of death
Did loosen every limb.
They blest the Old Woman's winding-sheet
With rites and prayers due;
## p. 13689 (#515) ##########################################
ROBERT SOUTHEY
13689
With holy-water they sprinkled her shroud,
And they sprinkled her coffin too.
And they chained her in her coffin of stone,
And with iron barred it down,
And in the church with three strong chains
They chained it to the ground.
And they blest the chains, and sprinkled them;
And fifty Priests stood round,
By night and day the Mass to say
Where she lay on the ground.
And fifty sacred Choristers
Beside the bier attend her,
Who day and night, by the tapers' light,
Should with holy hymns defend her.
To see the Priests and Choristers
It was a goodly sight,
Each holding, as it were a staff,
A taper burning bright.
And the church-bells all, both great and small,
Did toll so loud and long;
And they have barred the church-door hard,
After the even-song.
And the first night the tapers' light
Burnt steadily and clear;
But they without a hideous rout
Of angry fiends could hear;
;-
-
A hideous roar at the church-door,
Like a long thunder-peal;
And the Priests they prayed, and the Choristers sung
Louder, in fearful zeal.
Loud tolled the bell; the Priests prayed well;
The tapers they burnt bright:
The Monk her son, and her daughter the Nun,
They told their beads all night.
The cock he crew; the Fiends they flew
From the voice of the morning away:
Then undisturbed the Choristers sing,
And the fifty Priests they pray;
## p. 13690 (#516) ##########################################
13690
ROBERT SOUTHEY
As they had sung and prayed all night,
They prayed and sung all day.
The second night the tapers' light
Burnt dismally and blue,
And every one saw his neighbor's face
Like a dead man's face to view.
And yells and cries without arise,
That the stoutest heart might shock,
And a deafening roaring like a cataract pouring
Over a mountain rock.
The Monk and Nun they told their beads
As fast as they could tell;
And aye as louder grew the noise,
The faster went the bell.
Louder and louder the Choristers sung,
As they trembled more and more;
And the Priests, as they prayed to Heaven for aid,
They smote their breasts full sore.
The cock he crew; the Fiends they flew
From the voice of the morning away:
Then undisturbed the Choristers sing,
And the fifty Priests they pray;
As they had sung and prayed all night,
They prayed and sung all day.
The third night came, and the tapers' flame
A frightful stench did make;
And they burnt as though they had been dipped
In the burning brimstone lake.
And the loud commotion, like the rushing of ocean,
Grew momently more and more;
And strokes as of a battering-ram
Did shake the strong church-door.
The bellmen they for very fear
Could toll the bell no longer;
And still, as louder grew the strokes,
Their fear it grew the stronger.
The Monk and Nun forgot their beads;
They fell on the ground in dismay;
## p. 13691 (#517) ##########################################
ROBERT SOUTHEY
13691
There was not a single Saint in heaven
To whom they did not pray.
And the Choristers' song, which late was so strong,
Faltered with consternation;
For the church did rock as an earthquake shock
Uplifted its foundation.
And a sound was heard like the trumpet's blast
That shall one day wake the dead;-
The strong church-door could bear no more,
And the bolts and bars they fled;
And the tapers' light was extinguished quite;
And the Choristers faintly sung;
And the Priests, dismayed, panted and prayed,
And on all Saints in heaven for aid
They called with trembling tongue.
And in He came with eyes of flame,
The Devil, to fetch the dead;
And all the church with his presence glowed
Like a fiery furnace red.
He laid his hand on the iron chains,
And like flax they moldered asunder;
And the coffin lid, which was barred so firm,
He burst with his voice of thunder.
And he bade the Old Woman of Berkeley rise,
And come with her Master away:
A cold sweat started on that cold corpse,
At the voice she was forced to obey.
She rose on her feet in her winding-sheet;
Her dead flesh quivered with fear;
And a groan like that which the Old Woman gave
Never did mortal hear.
She followed her Master to the church-door
There stood a black horse there;
His breath was red like furnace smoke,
His eyes like a meteor's glare.
The Devil he flung her on the horse,
And he leaped up before·
## p. 13692 (#518) ##########################################
13692
ROBERT SOUTHEY
And away like the lightning's speed they went,
And she was seen no more.
They saw her no more: but her cries
For four miles round they could hear;
And children at rest at their mother's breast
Started, and screamed with fear.
THE CURSE
From The Curse of Kehama'
CHARM thy life
I
From the weapons of strife,
From stone and from wood,
From fire and from flood,
From the serpent's tooth,
And the beasts of blood;
From Sickness I charm thee,
And Time shall not harm thee:
But Earth, which is mine,
Its fruits shall deny thee;
And Water shall hear me,
And know thee and fly thee;
And the Winds shall not touch thee
When they pass by thee,
And the Dews shall not wet thee
When they fall nigh thee:
And thou shalt seek Death
To release thee, in vain;
Thou shalt live in thy pain,
While Kehama shall reign,
With a fire in thy heart,
And a fire in thy brain;
And Sleep shall obey me,
And visit thee never,
And the Curse shall be on thee
Forever and ever.
## p. 13693 (#519) ##########################################
13693
ÉMILE SOUVESTRE
(1806-1854)
N 1854, the year of Émile Souvestre's death in Paris, the French
Academy awarded to his widow the Lambert prize,— a tes-
timonial to the memory of the most useful writer. The
principal work to win him this distinction-'Le Philosophe sous les
Toits,' was not a piece of brilliant creation, not a learned treatise,
but a sweet-spirited little volume of reflections upon daily life. Upon
its appearance in 1851 the Academy crowned it; and in translation,
'The Attic Philosopher' has long been esteemed by English readers.
The philosopher was Souvestre himself, who knew poverty and hard
work all his life; and accepting both with contagious courage and
cheerfulness, advised his readers to make the best of whatever came.
He tested this philosophy. Born at Morlaix in Finisterre in 1806,
he passed his childhood and youth there; and grew intimately famil-
iar with Breton life and scenery. Next he studied law at Rennes,
where he tried unsuccessfully to practice. He was about twenty-four
when he went to Paris, hoping to make his way in literature. It has
been said that in Paris every would-be author is forced to discover his
own value; and after a stay there, many retire in sad self-knowledge.
Souvestre was stimulated by the richer intellectual life. His individ-
uality was too strong to be submerged. He remained a thorough
Breton, distance giving him a more definite appreciation of his
early home.
The sudden death of his brother, a sea captain, made him the
only support of his family; and he was obliged to return to Brittany,
where he became clerk in a large publishing-house at Nantes. During
the next uncertain years he wrote short articles for local journals.
For a time he was associated with a M. Papot in the management of
a school. He then became editor of a Brest newspaper. In 1835 he
returned to Paris, where his Breton tales soon made him a name.
During his comparatively short life of forty-eight years he wrote
more than forty books, comprising plays, short stories, and historical
works.
Like his great compatriot, the early realist Le Sage, one of Sou-
vestre's primary qualities was clear common-sense. Usual, universal
sentiments appealed to him more than romantic eccentricities. Like
another great Breton, Ernest Renan, he was deeply occupied with the
## p. 13694 (#520) ##########################################
13694
ÉMILE SOUVESTRE
question of religion. His stories, most of which reflect Breton life,
are often true tales told him by the peasants; and all have the quali-
ties of reality and religious feeling.
His greatest work, 'Les Derniers Bretons,' was an exposition of
Breton life, with all its traditions, sentiments, and modes of thought
and action. He felt that many tales traditionary among the poor
were in danger of being lost; and he hated to see them die from the
people's memory. He felt too that this folk-lore was of historical
value as a spontaneous revelation of a mental and moral attitude.
As he points out, the Eastern fairy tale, full of gorgeous color and
material delight, has little in common with the Breton tales, with
their curious mingling of shrewdness and sentiment, their positive
concern over and belief in the reward of virtue and retribution of
Both compositions reflect their authors. In his 'Le Foyer Bre-
ton,' a collection of folk-lore tales, - he preserved as far as possible
the traditional form of expression. They are full of local saws and
allusions; many are genuine fairy tales, in which kindly and prac-
tical fairies, by removing a series of obstacles, render young lovers
happy. Others evince a true Breton delight in the weird and gro-
tesque, and narrate the horrible fate of those who brave evil spirits
in accursed spots at midnight.
sin.
THE WASHERWOMEN OF NIGHT
From 'Le Foyer Breton'
HE Bretons are children of transgression like the rest, but
they love their dead; they pity those who burn in Purga-
tory, and try to ransom them from the fire of probation.
Every Sunday after mass, they pray for their souls on the spot
where their poor bodies perished.
It is especially in the black month [November] that they per-
form this Christian act. When the forerunner of winter comes
[All-Saints' Day], every one thinks of those who have gone to the
judgment of God. They have masses said at the altar of the
dead, they light candles to them, they confide them to the best
saints, they take the little children to their tombs; and after
vespers, the rector comes out of church to bless their graves.
It is also upon this night that Christ grants some solace to
the dead, and permits them to revisit the homes in which they
lived. There are then as many dead in the houses of the living
## p. 13695 (#521) ##########################################
ÉMILE SOUVESTRE
13695
as there are yellow leaves in the rough roads. Therefore true
Christians leave the table-cloth spread and the fire lighted, that
the dead may take their meals, and warm the limbs stiffened by
the cold of cemeteries.
But if there are true adorers of the Virgin and her Son,
there are also the children of the Black Angel [the Devil], who
forget those who have been nearest their hearts. Wilherm Pos-
tik was one of the latter. His father had quitted life without
having received absolution; and as the proverb says, "Kadion
is always the son of his father. " Therefore he cared only for
forbidden pleasures, danced during church-time when he could,
and drank during mass with beggarly horse-jockeys. Yet God
had not failed to send him warnings. In one year he had seen an
ill wind strike his mother, his sisters, and his wife; but he had
consoled himself for their deaths by inheriting their property.
The rector vainly warned him in sermon, that he was a
subject of scandal to all the parish. Far from correcting Wil-
herm, this public advice had only the result of making him give
up church, as might easily have been foreseen; for it is not by
snapping the whip one brings back a runaway horse. So he set
about living more as he chose than ever,- as faithless and law-
less as a fox in the brush.
Now it happened in that time that the fine days came to
an end, and the feast of the dead arrived. All baptized folk put
on their mourning-garments, and went to church to pray for the
dead; but Wilherm dressed himself in his best, and took the road
to the neighboring town.
All the time the others spent in relieving souls in pain, he
passed there drinking brandy with the sailors, and singing verses
composed by the millers [i. e. , coarse songs]. He did this until
nearly midnight; and did not think of returning until the others.
grew weary of wrong-doing. He had an iron constitution for
pleasure; and he left the inn the last one, as steady and active
as when he had entered.
But his heart was hot with drink. He sang aloud along the
road, songs which usually even the boldest would only whisper;
he passed the crucifixes without lowering his voice or lifting his
hat; and he struck the thickets of broom with his stick right and
left, without fear of wounding the souls which fill the ways upon
that day.
## p. 13696 (#522) ##########################################
13696
ÉMILE SOUVESTRE
He thus reached a crossway from which there were two paths
to his village. The longer was under the protection of God,
while the shorter was haunted by the dead. Many people cross-
ing it by night had heard noises and seen things of which they
did not speak, except when with others and within reach of holy-
water. But Wilherm feared only thirst; therefore he took the
shortest path, where his clogs clattered on the pebbles.
Now the night was moonless; the wind rattled down the leaves,
the springs rolled sadly along the bank, the bushes shivered like
a man in fear; and in the silence, Wilherm's steps sounded like
those of giants: but nothing frightened him, and he kept on.
As he passed the old ruined manor, he heard the weather-
cock, which said to him:—
"Go back, go back, go back! >>
Wilherm went on his way. He reached the cascade, and the
water murmured:
"Do not pass, do not pass, do not pass! "
He set his foot on the stones polished by the stream, and
crossed. As he reached a worm-eaten oak, the wind whistling
through the branches repeated: -
"Stay here, stay here, stay here! "
But Wilherm struck the dead tree with his stick, and hurried on.
At last he entered the haunted valley. Midnight sounded
from three parishes. Wilherm began to whistle the tune of
'Marionnik. ' But just as he was whistling the fourth verse, he
heard the sound of a cart, and saw it coming towards him cov-
ered with a pall.
Wilherm recognized the hearse. It was drawn by six black
horses, and driven by the "Ankon" [phantom of death], who held
an iron whip and repeated ceaselessly:-
――
-
"Turn aside, or I will overturn you. "
Wilherm made way for him without being disconcerted.
"What are you doing here, Paleface? " he demanded boldly.
"I seize and I surprise," answered the Ankon.
"So you are a robber and a traitor? " went on Wilherm.
"I strike without look or thought. "
"That is, like a fool or a brute. But why are you in such a
hurry to-day? "
"I am seeking Wilherm Postik," answered the phantom, pass-
ing by.
## p. 13697 (#523) ##########################################
ÉMILE SOUVESTRE
13697
The merry Wilherm burst out laughing, and went on.
As he reached the little hedge of blackthorn which led to the
washing-place, he saw two women in white who were hanging
linen on the bushes.
"Upon my life! here are some girls who are not afraid of
the dew," said he. "Why are you out so late, little doves? "
"We are washing, we are drying, we are sewing," answered
the two women at once.
"But what? " asked the young man.
"The shroud of a dead man who still talks and walks. "
"A dead man! My faith! What is his name? "
"Wilherm Postik. "
The fellow laughed louder than at first, and went on down
the rough little path. But as he advanced, he heard more and
more distinctly the blows of wooden beetles against the stones;
and soon he could see the washerwomen of night pounding their
grave-clothes, as they sang the sad refrain:-
"Unless a Christian our doom can stay,
Until Judgment Day we must wash away;
To the sound of the wind, in the moon's pale light,
We must wash and wash our grave-clothes white. "
As soon as they saw the merry fellow, all cried out and ran
up to him, offering him their winding-sheets and asking him to
wring them out.
"That's too trifling a service to be refused among friends,"
answered Wilherm gayly: "but one at a time, fair washerwomen;
a man has only two hands for wringing as well as for embracing. "
Then he set down his stick, and took the end of the shroud
which one of the dead women offered him; being careful to twist
the same way she did, for he had learned from old people that
thus only could he escape being broken to pieces.
But as the shroud was thus turning, behold, the other washer-
women surrounded Wilherm; and he recognized his aunt, his
wife, his mother, and his sisters. They all cried, "A thousand
curses on him who lets his people burn in hell! A thousand
curses!
conscience-smitten with the bow and arrows and restores them to
their owner, in spite of the anxious protest of Ulysses, who knows
that his own life now hangs upon a thread. But Neoptolemus holds
the hand that would draw the bow and slay his enemy, and appeals
on the ground of friendship and of generosity to Philoctetes now to
yield and return with him as ally to Troy. But here he meets with
an equally stubborn resistance; and, vanquished by the vanquished
man, he has submitted, and is going to bring Philoctetes to his home
at Trachis, when the divine command of Heracles prevents this vio-
lation of the current story, and the conflict is ended by the submis-
sion of Philoctetes.
## p. 13673 (#495) ##########################################
SOPHOCLES
13673
Such is the skeleton of the drama; but this skeleton is enriched
by the accessories which a true poet adds to his argument. The
picturesque features of the lonely island, the voice of nature which
threatened and which solaced the lonely man, the birds and beasts
that were his companions and his prey,- these are ever present to
the hero in his lamentations and his prayers. No doubt the poet
knew well this island, which was, like Imbros, a peculiar property of
the Athenians for a great part of its history. It lies not far from the
Trojan coast, surrounded by splendid historic lands: the giant Samo-
thrace, the still more gigantic Athos, from whose peak I have looked
upon Lemnos and thought of the many legends that cluster about that
rugged island. And now, after long centuries of cultivation, centu-
ries of piracy and of misgovernment have reduced it again to the
very condition described by Sophocles: lonely uplands, windy hills,
waste and thicket replacing the labors of men.
It is remarkable that the rival plays on the subject those of
Eschylus and Euripides-did not make the island an absolute wil-
derness. The chorus, instead of representing the sailors who came
with Neoptolemus, as it is in Sophocles's play, did visit him; and one
of them, Actor, appeared as his friend. These facts we owe to an
interesting little oration of Dio Chrysostom, who compares the three
plays then extant and known to him.
-
But I will not extend this commentary unduly. Those who desire
to appreciate Sophocles must not attempt to do so at second hand,
through this essay or through any modern translation; they must
learn Greek, and read him in the original: for no version in any
European language can give any notion of the strength, the grace,
the suppleness of his dialogue. Not that he was absolutely without
faults in style. He himself, in a curious sentence reported by Plu-
tarch, says that he had three styles: first, the grand eloquence of
Eschylus, which he had shaken off early; then the harsh and artifi-
cial style of his next epoch, - features well known to us in contem-
porary writers, such as Thucydides; lastly he had adopted the style
which was best for painting character, and therefore the fittest for
his purpose.
We can still trace some of the harshness of which he
speaks in the earlier extant plays. The opening speech in the
'Antigone,' for example, is contorted and difficult in style, and is by
no means exceptional in this quality. Some of the choral odes seem
to us to use constructions which we can hardly call Greek; and if it
be urged that in these cases corruption of the text has altered the
poet's words, it must have been a very early corruption, and such is
not likely unless the original was really obscure. We know also
from the great number of strange words cited from his lost plays by
early grammarians that his vocabulary must have been not easy and
## p. 13674 (#496) ##########################################
13674
SOPHOCLES
natural, like that of Euripides, but artificial and recondite. This love
of erudite words seems to have been as strong in Sophocles as it
was in Shakespeare.
But if he was licentious in his vocabulary and sometimes daring in
his syntax, no great poet was ever more conservative in his art. It
is to us an ever-recurring source of wonder, how a great poet, born
in a particular generation, writing for a special public, hampered
by all the conventionalities of his age, nevertheless not only rises
above all these transitory circumstances and seizes the great and
permanent features of human nature, but even frequently turns his
shackles into a new source of beauty. Some of the greatest felici-
ties in poetry have been the direct result of the curbs of metre or
of rhyme. Nothing has more evidently determined the beauties of
Greek or mediæval sculpture than its position as the handmaid of
architecture. There are many more such instances, but none more
signal than that supplied by the work of Sophocles.
Nothing can be imagined more artificial than the Greek stage,
nothing upon that stage more artificial than tragedy as determined
by his predecessors. The subjects to be treated were limited to the
Greek legends; legends familiar to the audience, and not admitting
of any great liberties in treatment. The actors were padded out and
masked, so that all delicate acting was impossible, and slow declama-
tion was the law of the stage. The importance of the chorus and
its traditional primacy in the earliest plays determined the musical
character of Greek tragedy; which may best be compared to a mod-
ern oratorio, acted on the stage. Thus the poet must not only write
dramatic verse, he must be a lyric poet; nay more, we are told that
he must compose the music for his odes. Even these set pieces, like
our musical interludes, were not enough for the requirements of the
drama: there were lyrical monodies, or dialogues between the actor
and the chorus, which required in the actor-in early days the poet
himself - proficiency in singing. It was in fact the "music-drama "
of Wagner, out-Wagnered. All these conditions were satisfied by
Sophocles in his day. But what marks his world-position is this:
though the music is lost; though the stage as he knew it is gone
forever; though nothing remains to us but the text, in metres which
had their musical accompaniments and which do not speak easily to
modern ears,-still these plays, stripped of all the accessories which
made them splendid in their day of performance, transcribed with
ignorance and defaced by time, the widowed and forlorn remnant
of a bygone age and an extinct society, move every modern heart;
stimulate every modern poet; stand forth in their imperishable maj-
esty, like the ruined Parthenon, unapproachable in their essential per-
fection.
## p. 13675 (#497) ##########################################
SOPHOCLES
13675
1
What an age was this, when the builders of the Parthenon and
the authors of tragedy met and discussed the principles of their art!
The lofty Pericles was there, the genial Herodotus, the brilliant Aris-
tophanes, the homely Socrates, all contributing to form an atmo-
sphere in which no poor or unreal art could last for a day. But
artificial they all were, except Socrates; though the artifice was only
the vehicle for great ideas, for the deepest nature, for the loftiest
ideals. Hence the changes of custom, and even of traditions, have
not marred the eternal greatness of Sophocles's tragedies. Sufferers
such as Ajax, Philoctetes, Œdipus, will ever command the deepest
human pity; martyrs such as Antigone, the purest admiration. To
paraphrase the words of Aristotle, Sophocles purifies the affections of
pity and awe in the hearts of his audience by representing to them
ideal men and women suffering huge misfortunes; broken it may be
on the wheel of fortune, but not vanquished, because their heroic will
is invincible.
This is the great moral lesson which the poet has taught the
world; and it constitutes his first and greatest claim to rank among
the stars of the first magnitude in the literature of nations. In the-
ology he was a conservative; he did not venture, like Euripides, to
quarrel with the current myths and to question the morality of the
current creeds. But even as every sound modern moralist holds
that in this world, the ideal of life and conduct is far higher than
the average specimens we meet in ordinary society,—so Sophocles
was convinced that there was a Divine morality, a Divine justice, far
higher and purer than the lives and characters of the several gods as
represented in Homer and the Epic Cycle. While therefore he does
not alter the hard features of the Greek gods, or justify their jealousy
and vindictiveness, he frequently asserts a very different and a far
higher government of the world.
Such being the highest feature in the poet's philosophy, we may
place next to it his admirable knowledge and portraiture of human
character. The gallery of his heroes and heroines is like the gallery
of a great painter's works, which gives us impressive and imperisha-
ble types. He takes but little care about his villains: his tyrants
were not drawn from life, and his only erring queen - Clytemnestra
-is not very interesting when we compare her to the Clytemnestra
of Eschylus. But his heroines are as great as those of Euripides;
his heroes are far greater; and his whole stage is more human than
that of Eschylus.
Apart from the matter is the style; and in artistic work the style
or form is of equal if not of greater importance. It is through style.
that any writer or age of writers becomes a model, or an ideal, for
succeeding generations to pursue. But as I am debarred in this
## p. 13676 (#498) ##########################################
13676
SOPHOCLES
essay from quoting from the original, and am addressing a public not
intimate with Greek, I am precluded from discussing this question
with any further detail; and can only repeat my previous warning
that Greek of the Attic age, used by its greatest masters, is a vehicle
of expression so perfect both in its strength and its delicacy, that all
versions in other tongues seem tame and bald to those who can read
the poet's own words. It is this peerless perfection in Greek style,
not only in the art of composition, but in the plastic arts, which has
kept Greek studies alive as the very essence of any thorough modern
culture. Nor is it likely that a time will ever come when future
generations will have made such advances in art that the Edipus
of Sophocles, the Hermes of Praxiteles, the nameless tomb of the
King of Sidon, the temples on the Acropolis at Athens, will be super-
seded by greater models.
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## p. 13676 (#499) ##########################################
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13677
ROBERT SOUTHEY
(1774-1843)
F IT were possible to earn a place among the immortals by
the force of unremitting toil, no man of letters could have a
clearer claim to the distinction than Robert Southey. The
vast labors of his life, seconding talents of no mean order, did indeed
build for him a reputation which cannot be destroyed by time. What
the author of Thalaba' and the Life of Nelson' accomplished, has
a definite and solid value. Within his limits he did his life's work
well. He was a good and faithful servant of literature: had he had
more of the mastery of genius, he would have been less in bondage
to his conceptions. As it was, he was fettered by the schemes for
his vast epics and interminable histories. The element of drudgery
dulls even the greatest of his works. He is among English men of
letters as one that serveth.
His life touched at many points the lives of other noted men; yet
it was ever self-contained, closed in against all passions but the one
devouring passion for culture. There was a Southey who, feeling the
electric currents of the revolution, dreamed of brotherhood and free-
dom in the forests of America: but the Southey of literary history
spent his life among his thousands of beloved books in the quiet
rooms of Greta Hall, content with the use and wont of the Old
World; content to perform, year in and year out, the daily tasks of
composition, proof-reading, and letter-writing. The poet had become
the sober writer of prose; the revolutionist had become the conserv-
ative.
Robert Southey was born on the 12th of August, 1774. His father,
a linen draper, being unsuccessful in his business, the care and sup-
port of the boy was partly assumed by his mother's maiden aunt,
Miss Tyler, an eccentric woman, who was wise enough however
to feed her charge's mind with such tales as 'Goody Two-Shoes'
and the History of the Seven Champions of England'; she further
trained the future poet in the way he should go, by taking him to
the theatre, and by allowing him to enter into the enchanted world
of Beaumont and Fletcher, and to wander along the broad human
highways of Shakespeare.
He was early taken from these most beautiful and tender nurses
of genius, and delivered over to schoolmasters to be "regularly"
## p. 13678 (#504) ##########################################
13678
ROBERT SOUTHEY
educated. Great institutions of learning do not always know how
to conduct the education of a poet. Westminster School rejected
Southey after four years of nurture, because the boy wrote a sarcas-
tic article on flogging, for the paper published by the pupils. Two
enduring friendships, however, were formed at Westminster: one with
Grosvenor Bedford, the other with C. W. Wynn. It was through the
liberality of the latter that an annuity of £160 was for many years
settled upon Southey. Through provision made by his uncle, the
Rev. Mr. Hill, chaplain to the British factory at Lisbon, Southey was
enabled to go to Oxford. Christ Church rejected him because of
the Westminster episode, but he was received at Balliol.
In 1794 occurred an event of much importance in his life: he met
Coleridge. With the mystical poet, "voyaging on strange seas of
thought alone," the young Southey had much in common. They
were both under the domination of the republican spirit; they had
both looked to France for the dawn of the social millennium, and had
beheld only the terrors of the midnight tempest. They both dreamed
of a world made over nearer to the heart's desire. Coleridge had
already formulated his dreams. They should go to America: there in
the virgin forests they could free themselves forever from the perni-
cious social system of the Old World. They would live as brothers.
Each would till the soil, living by the work of his own hands. Each
would take with him a wife who should share the toil and the bless-
ings. They would rear their children in innocence and peace. They
would live the ideal life of study and of manual labor in the bosom
of nature. Their community would be a "pantisocracy. " Coleridge
and Southey had friends ready and willing to make the venture,-
Robert Lovell, a young Quaker; Robert Allen, and George Burnett.
Lovell's wife had four sisters, - Edith, Sarah, Martha, and Elizabeth
Fricker. An idea prevailed among the pantisocrats that these ladies
might be married off-hand, the only inducement necessary being a
glowing description of the land of promise. Southey, however, had
another object in marrying than the good of the new community.
He loved Edith Fricker, and she returned his affection.
Nothing was lacking now to the perfect success of the scheme but
money. The young enthusiasts were rich in dreams, but poor in
pocket. Coleridge never had money in his life. The others, being
also of the poetical temperament, could never have much of it.
Southey and Coleridge began a series of lectures, the one on history,
the other on ethics and politics, for the sake of raising the necessary
funds. About this time Southey met Joseph Cottle, a Bristol book-
seller, whose sincere friendship manifested itself in substantial forms.
Two years before, in 1794, Southey had written an epic, 'Joan of Arc,'
in which he had embodied his democratic fervor. Cottle bought this
## p. 13679 (#505) ##########################################
ROBERT SOUTHEY
13679
of him for fifty guineas, and published it in 1796. The assistance.
was timely; for the young poet was in disgrace with Miss Tyler,
who had cast him out on the news of his intended marriage with
Miss Fricker.
Soon after the publication of Joan of Arc,' Southey's uncle, Mr.
Hill, arrived from Lisbon; having heard of his nephew's vagaries,
and believing that a change of scene would bring about a change of
mind, he induced him to return with him. On the day of his depart-
ure he was secretly married to Edith. He returned, cured of pan-
tisocracy, but with his mind full of poetical schemes: epics galore,
tragedies and comedies and romances, which were to be wrought out
one by one. Among the first of these to be completed was 'Madoc,'
a narrative poem of the adventures of a Welsh prince of the twelfth
century in the wilderness of America. He had been meanwhile for a
year in London crucifying his spirit over law-books. After leaving
London and the law, he wandered through England for a time, finally
settling at Norwich, where he spent twelve months.
The breaking
down of his health led to a second visit to Portugal, on which his
wife accompanied him. On his return he was offered the position
of private secretary to Mr. Corry, Chancellor of the Exchequer for
Ireland. He accepted it; but the post not proving a congenial one,
he soon returned to England, and not long afterwards took up his
abode in Greta Hall, Keswick, in the English Lake region, where he
was to spend the remainder of his life,-supporting himself, his fam-
ily, and Coleridge's family, by his incessant literary labors.
It is in the household of Greta Hall that the greater Southey,
Southey the man, comes into clear view; he is seen here as the lov-
ing father and husband, as the kind kinsman of the Coleridge child-
ren, as the friend ever ready with words of sympathy, advice, and
encouragement. A remarkable family of children was gathered under
his roof. There were his own brilliant, beautiful Herbert, Edith May,
Bertha, Kate, and Isabel; there was the marvelous child, the elfish
Hartley Coleridge; there were also his brother Derwent, and Sara
Coleridge, who had inherited not a small share of her father's genius.
There was besides a large colony of cats, whose high-sounding names
Southey has recorded in his 'Chronicle History of the Cattery of
Cat's Eden. '
In 1813 Southey was appointed to the office of Poet Laureate,
made vacant by the death of Pye. At that date his more important
works included his metrical romance of Thalaba the Destroyer,' the
romance of 'Amadis de Gaul' from a Spanish version, 'The Chronicle
of the Cid, 'The Curse of Kehama,' 'Espriella's Letters,' and the
'History of Portugal' begun but not finished. In 1807 he had pro-
duced Specimens of the Later English Poets,' and 'Palmerin of
## p. 13680 (#506) ##########################################
13680
ROBERT SOUTHEY
His Poet-Laureateship
Southey seems to have
Portugal,' a translation from the Portuguese.
was the recognition of his youthful work.
renounced poetry with his republicanism. The odes which he wrote
in his official character are forced in tone, and with exception of the
'Funeral Song for the Princess Charlotte,' commonplace. After tak-
ing up his abode in Greta Hall, Southey devoted himself chiefly to
prose composition. He wrote there his 'History of Brazil,' his 'His-
tory of Portugal,' his lives of Wesley, of Cowper, and of Nelson, his
commonplace books, his History of the Peninsular War,' and that
charming book of gossip, 'The Doctor. ' His prose is masterly, direct,
and even. His claim to be numbered among the foremost English
men of letters rests indeed upon his prose.
The events of his life at Keswick are chiefly those of a student
and a scholar. For many years it was necessary that he should
write incessantly, performing his day-labor like a workman in the
fields. After this necessity was removed, he still toiled on, finding
his greatest pleasure in the companionship of his books, and of his
friends, among whom were Charles Lamb, Wordsworth, and Landor.
His reputation attracted to him men of the highest intellectual rank;
even one man as far removed from him in thought and feeling as
the poet Shelley. Southey was never slow to recognize genius and
to befriend it; but with certain literary movements in England he
had little sympathy. His designation of Byron and his coterie as
the "Satanic School" was not the least just, as it was the most un-
friendly, of his criticisms. For the work of Wordsworth, of Landor,
and of Lamb, he had unqualified admiration.
In 1816 Southey was offered a baronetcy through the influence of
Sir Robert Peel; but he declined the honor. In 1826 he was offered a
seat in Parliament, and an estate to qualify him for the office; but this
he also declined. Oxford conferred upon him the degree of LL. D. ;
he refused a similar honor from Cambridge.
His later years were darkened by domestic afflictions. The light of
his life went out when his son Herbert, a child of the rarest promise,
passed away. His second marriage in 1839, to the writer Caroline
Anne Bowles, was one of convenience. For a year or two before his
death the vigor of his faculties was almost wholly departed. He died
on the 21st of March, 1843, literally worn out by brain labor.
As Mr. Dowden, in his life of Southey, points out, the literary
career of the poet falls into two periods: a period during which he
devoted himself chiefly to poetry, and a later period during which
prose occupied the first place.
Southey's poetry is not of the first rank. It is too intentional and
well-ordered. He had not the imagination to cope with the subject-
matter of his epics,- which, as in 'Thalaba' and 'Kehama,' is taken
## p. 13681 (#507) ##########################################
ROBERT SOUTHEY
13681
from wild Arabian legends, or as in "Roderick,' from the dim rich
pages of mediæval chronicle. His simple, serious spirit expresses
itself most adequately in his ballads, and in such poems as 'The
Battle of Blenheim,' 'The Complaints of the Poor,' and in the quiet,
measured verse of the 'Inscriptions. ' His prose has more of the
light of inspiration. Its sustained, sober excellence is well adapted to
the long-drawn-out impersonal narratives which Southey could handle
with so much skill and ease. He united the patience of the media-
val chronicler with the culture of the modern historian. He wrote,
in the sober temper of the scholar, of "old, unhappy, far-off things,
and battles long ago. " For him the fever had departed from them.
He was not a dramatist in his conception of history. What had been
done had been done, and he recorded it impassionately. Yet he was
not without keen sympathies, as his Life of Cowper' and his 'Life
of Nelson' show. Southey as a biographer reveals his own high
standards of life, his love of equity, his appreciation of noble achieve-
ment wherever found, his belief in character as the basis of well-
being. He himself was altogether true-hearted. The manliness which
pervades all his works makes large compensation for the lack of the
divine spark of genius.
THE HOLLY-TREE
O
READER! hast thou ever stood to see
The Holly-tree?
The eye that contemplates it well perceives
Its glossy leaves,
Ordered by an Intelligence so wise
As might confound the Atheist's sophistries.
Below a circling fence its leaves are seen,
Wrinkled and keen;
No grazing cattle through their prickly round
Can reach to wound;
But as they grow where nothing is to fear,
Smooth and unarmed the pointless leaves appear.
XXIII-856
I love to view these things with curious eyes,
And moralize;
And in this wisdom of the Holly-tree
Can emblem see
Wherewith perchance to make a pleasant rhyme,
One which may profit in the after-time.
## p. 13682 (#508) ##########################################
13682
ROBERT SOUTHEY
Thus though abroad perchance I might appear
Harsh and austere,
To those who on my leisure would intrude
Reserved and rude,-
Gentle at home amid my friends I'd be,
Like the high leaves upon the Holly-tree.
And should my youth-as youth is apt, I know-
Some harshness show,
All vain asperities I day by day
Would wear away,
Till the smooth temper of my age should be
Like the high leaves upon the Holly-tree.
And as, when all the summer trees are seen
So bright and green,
The Holly leaves a sober hue display
Less bright than they,
But when the bare and wintry woods we see,
What then so cheerful as the Holly-tree? —
So serious should my youth appear among
The thoughtless throng;
So would I seem, amid the young and gay,
More grave than they,
That in my age as cheerful I might be
As the green winter of the Holly-tree.
STANZAS WRITTEN IN MY LIBRARY
Y DAYS among the Dead are passed;
Around me I behold,
Where'er these casual eyes are cast,
The mighty minds of old;
My never-failing friends are they,
With whom I converse day by day.
Μ'
With them I take delight in weal,
And seek relief in woe;
And while I understand and feel
How much to them I owe,
My cheeks have often been bedewed
With tears of thoughtful gratitude.
## p. 13683 (#509) ##########################################
ROBERT SOUTHEY
13683
My thoughts are with the Dead; with them
I live in long-past years,
Their virtues love, their faults condemn,
Partake their hopes and fears,
And from their lessons seek and find
Instruction with a humble mind.
My hopes are with the Dead: anon
My place with them will be,
And I with them shall travel on
Through all futurity;
Yet leaving here a name, I trust,
That will not perish in the dust.
THE INCHCAPE ROCK
N°
O STIR in the air, no stir in the sea:
The ship was still as she could be;
Her sails from heaven received no motion;
Her keel was steady in the ocean.
Without either sign or sound of their shock,
The waves flowed over the Inchcape Rock;
So little they rose, so little they fell,
They did not move the Inchcape Bell.
The Abbot of Aberbrothok
Had placed that Bell on the Inchcape Rock;
On a buoy in the storm it floated and swung,
And over the waves its warning rung.
When the Rock was hid by the surge's swell,
The mariners heard the warning Bell;
And then they knew the perilous Rock,
And blest the Abbot of Aberbrothok.
The sun in heaven was shining gay;
All things were joyful on that day;
The sea-birds screamed as they wheeled round,
And there was joyance in their sound.
The buoy of the Inchcape Bell was seen,
A darker speck on the ocean green:
Sir Ralph the Rover walked his deck,
And he fixed his eye on the darker speck.
## p. 13684 (#510) ##########################################
13684
ROBERT SOUTHEY
He felt the cheering power of spring;
It made him whistle, it made him sing:
His heart was mirthful to excess,
But the Rover's mirth was wickedness.
His eye was on the Inchcape float;
Quoth he, "My men, put out the boat,
And row me to the Inchcape Rock,
And I'll plague the Abbot of Aberbrothok. "
The boat is lowered, the boatmen row,
And to the Inchcape Rock they go;
Sir Ralph bent over from the boat,
And he cut the Bell from the Inchcape float.
Down sunk the Bell with a gurgling sound;
The bubbles rose and burst around:
Quoth Sir Ralph, "The next who comes to the Rock
Won't bless the Abbot of Aberbrothok. "
Sir Ralph the Rover sailed away;
He scoured the seas for many a day:
And now, grown rich with plundered store,
He steers his course for Scotland's shore.
So thick a haze o'erspreads the sky,
They cannot see the sun on high:
The wind hath blown a gale all day;
At evening it hath died away.
On the deck the Rover takes his stand:
So dark it is, they see no land.
Quoth Sir Ralph, "It will be lighter soon,
For there is the dawn of the rising moon. "
"Canst hear," said one, "the breakers roar?
For methinks we should be near the shore. "
"Now where we are I cannot tell,
But I wish I could hear the Inchcape Bell. "
-
They hear no sound; the swell is strong;
Though the wind hath fallen, they drift along,
Till the vessel strikes with a shivering shock:
"O Christ! it is the Inchcape Rock! "
Sir Ralph the Rover tore his hair,
He curst himself in his despair:
## p. 13685 (#511) ##########################################
ROBERT SOUTHEY
13685
The waves rush in on every side;
The ship is sinking beneath the tide.
But even in his dying fear,
One dreadful sound could the Rover hear,—
A sound as if, with the Inchcape Bell,
The Devil below was ringing his knell.
THE BATTLE OF BLENHEIM
T WAS a summer evening;
IT Old Kaspar's work was done,
And he before his cottage door
Was sitting in the sun;
And by him sported on the green
His little grandchild Wilhelmine.
She saw her brother Peterkin
Roll something large and round,
Which he beside the rivulet
In playing there had found;
He came to ask what he had found,
That was so large and smooth and round.
Old Kaspar took it from the boy,
Who stood expectant by;
And then the old man shook his head,
And with a natural sigh,-
Tis some poor fellow's skull," said he,
"Who fell in the great victory.
"I find them in the garden,
For there's many hereabout;
And often when I go to plow,
The plowshare turns them out:
For many thousand men," said he,
"Were slain in that great victory. "
"Now tell us what 'twas all about,"
Young Peterkin he cries;
And little Wilhelmine looks up
With wonder-waiting eyes:-
"Now tell us all about the war,
And what they fought each other for. "
―
## p. 13686 (#512) ##########################################
13686
ROBERT SOUTHEY
"It was the English," Kaspar cried,
"Who put the French to rout;
But what they fought each other for,
I could not well make out:
But everybody said," quoth he,
"That 'twas a famous victory.
My father lived at Blenheim then,
Yon little stream hard by:
They burnt his dwelling to the ground,
And he was forced to fly;
So with his wife and child he fled,
Nor had he where to rest his head.
"With fire and sword the country round
Was wasted far and wide;
And many a childing mother then,
And new-born baby, died:
But things like that, you know, must be
At every famous victory.
"They say it was a shocking sight
After the field was won;
For many thousand bodies here
Lay rotting in the sun:
But things like that, you know, must be,
After a famous victory.
"Great praise the Duke of Marlborough won,
And our good Prince Eugene. "
"Why, 'twas a very wicked thing! "
Said little Wilhelmine.
"Nay, nay, my little girl," quoth he:
"It was a famous victory,
"And everybody praised the Duke,
Who this great fight did win. "
"But what good came of it at last? "
Quoth little Peterkin.
"Why, that I cannot tell," said he;
"But 'twas a famous victory. "
## p. 13687 (#513) ##########################################
ROBERT SOUTHEY
13687
THE OLD WOMAN OF BERKELEY
A BALLAD, SHOWING HOW AN OLD WOMAN RODE DOUBLE, AND WHO
RODE BEFORE HER
THE
HE Raven croaked as she sate at her meal,
And the Old Woman knew what he said·
And she grew pale at the Raven's tale,
And sickened, and went to her bed.
"Now fetch me my children, and fetch them with speed,"
The Old Woman of Berkeley said;
"The Monk my son, and my daughter the Nun,
Bid them hasten, or I shall be dead. ”
The Monk her son, and her daughter the Nun,
Their way to Berkeley went;
And they have brought, with pious thought,
The holy sacrament.
The Old Woman shrieked as they entered her door,
And she cried with a voice of despair,
"Now take away the sacrament,
For its presence I cannot bear! "
Her lip it trembled with agony;
The sweat ran down her brow:
"I have tortures in store for evermore;
But spare me, my children, now! "
Away they sent the sacrament:
The fit it left her weak;
She looked at her children with ghastly eyes,
And faintly struggled to speak.
"All kind of sin I have rioted in,
And the judgment now must be;
But I secured my children's souls:
Oh, pray, my children, for me!
"I have 'nointed myself with infants' fat;
The fiends have been my slaves;
From sleeping babes I have sucked the breath;
And breaking by charms the sleep of death,
I have called the dead from their graves.
## p. 13688 (#514) ##########################################
13688
ROBERT SOUTHEY
"And the Devil will fetch me now in fire,
My witchcrafts to atone;
And I, who have troubled the dead man's grave,
Shall never have rest in my own.
"Bless, I entreat, my winding-sheet,
My children, I beg of you;
And with holy-water sprinkle my shroud,
And sprinkle my coffin too.
"And let me be chained in my coffin of stone;
And fasten it strong, I implore,
With iron bars, and with three chains
Chain it to the church-floor.
"And bless the chains, and sprinkle them;
And let fifty Priests stand round,
Who night and day the Mass may say
Where I lie on the ground.
"And see that fifty Choristers
Beside the bier attend me,
And day and night, by the tapers' light,
With holy hymns defend me.
"Let the church-bells all, both great and small,
Be tolled by night and day,
To drive from thence the fiends who come
To bear my body away.
"And ever have the church-door barred
After the even-song;
And I beseech you, children dear,
Let the bars and bolts be strong.
"And let this be three days and nights,
My wretched corpse to save;
Till the fourth morning keep me safe,
And then I may rest in my grave. "
The Old Woman of Berkeley laid her down,
And her eyes grew deadly dim;
Short came her breath, and the struggle of death
Did loosen every limb.
They blest the Old Woman's winding-sheet
With rites and prayers due;
## p. 13689 (#515) ##########################################
ROBERT SOUTHEY
13689
With holy-water they sprinkled her shroud,
And they sprinkled her coffin too.
And they chained her in her coffin of stone,
And with iron barred it down,
And in the church with three strong chains
They chained it to the ground.
And they blest the chains, and sprinkled them;
And fifty Priests stood round,
By night and day the Mass to say
Where she lay on the ground.
And fifty sacred Choristers
Beside the bier attend her,
Who day and night, by the tapers' light,
Should with holy hymns defend her.
To see the Priests and Choristers
It was a goodly sight,
Each holding, as it were a staff,
A taper burning bright.
And the church-bells all, both great and small,
Did toll so loud and long;
And they have barred the church-door hard,
After the even-song.
And the first night the tapers' light
Burnt steadily and clear;
But they without a hideous rout
Of angry fiends could hear;
;-
-
A hideous roar at the church-door,
Like a long thunder-peal;
And the Priests they prayed, and the Choristers sung
Louder, in fearful zeal.
Loud tolled the bell; the Priests prayed well;
The tapers they burnt bright:
The Monk her son, and her daughter the Nun,
They told their beads all night.
The cock he crew; the Fiends they flew
From the voice of the morning away:
Then undisturbed the Choristers sing,
And the fifty Priests they pray;
## p. 13690 (#516) ##########################################
13690
ROBERT SOUTHEY
As they had sung and prayed all night,
They prayed and sung all day.
The second night the tapers' light
Burnt dismally and blue,
And every one saw his neighbor's face
Like a dead man's face to view.
And yells and cries without arise,
That the stoutest heart might shock,
And a deafening roaring like a cataract pouring
Over a mountain rock.
The Monk and Nun they told their beads
As fast as they could tell;
And aye as louder grew the noise,
The faster went the bell.
Louder and louder the Choristers sung,
As they trembled more and more;
And the Priests, as they prayed to Heaven for aid,
They smote their breasts full sore.
The cock he crew; the Fiends they flew
From the voice of the morning away:
Then undisturbed the Choristers sing,
And the fifty Priests they pray;
As they had sung and prayed all night,
They prayed and sung all day.
The third night came, and the tapers' flame
A frightful stench did make;
And they burnt as though they had been dipped
In the burning brimstone lake.
And the loud commotion, like the rushing of ocean,
Grew momently more and more;
And strokes as of a battering-ram
Did shake the strong church-door.
The bellmen they for very fear
Could toll the bell no longer;
And still, as louder grew the strokes,
Their fear it grew the stronger.
The Monk and Nun forgot their beads;
They fell on the ground in dismay;
## p. 13691 (#517) ##########################################
ROBERT SOUTHEY
13691
There was not a single Saint in heaven
To whom they did not pray.
And the Choristers' song, which late was so strong,
Faltered with consternation;
For the church did rock as an earthquake shock
Uplifted its foundation.
And a sound was heard like the trumpet's blast
That shall one day wake the dead;-
The strong church-door could bear no more,
And the bolts and bars they fled;
And the tapers' light was extinguished quite;
And the Choristers faintly sung;
And the Priests, dismayed, panted and prayed,
And on all Saints in heaven for aid
They called with trembling tongue.
And in He came with eyes of flame,
The Devil, to fetch the dead;
And all the church with his presence glowed
Like a fiery furnace red.
He laid his hand on the iron chains,
And like flax they moldered asunder;
And the coffin lid, which was barred so firm,
He burst with his voice of thunder.
And he bade the Old Woman of Berkeley rise,
And come with her Master away:
A cold sweat started on that cold corpse,
At the voice she was forced to obey.
She rose on her feet in her winding-sheet;
Her dead flesh quivered with fear;
And a groan like that which the Old Woman gave
Never did mortal hear.
She followed her Master to the church-door
There stood a black horse there;
His breath was red like furnace smoke,
His eyes like a meteor's glare.
The Devil he flung her on the horse,
And he leaped up before·
## p. 13692 (#518) ##########################################
13692
ROBERT SOUTHEY
And away like the lightning's speed they went,
And she was seen no more.
They saw her no more: but her cries
For four miles round they could hear;
And children at rest at their mother's breast
Started, and screamed with fear.
THE CURSE
From The Curse of Kehama'
CHARM thy life
I
From the weapons of strife,
From stone and from wood,
From fire and from flood,
From the serpent's tooth,
And the beasts of blood;
From Sickness I charm thee,
And Time shall not harm thee:
But Earth, which is mine,
Its fruits shall deny thee;
And Water shall hear me,
And know thee and fly thee;
And the Winds shall not touch thee
When they pass by thee,
And the Dews shall not wet thee
When they fall nigh thee:
And thou shalt seek Death
To release thee, in vain;
Thou shalt live in thy pain,
While Kehama shall reign,
With a fire in thy heart,
And a fire in thy brain;
And Sleep shall obey me,
And visit thee never,
And the Curse shall be on thee
Forever and ever.
## p. 13693 (#519) ##########################################
13693
ÉMILE SOUVESTRE
(1806-1854)
N 1854, the year of Émile Souvestre's death in Paris, the French
Academy awarded to his widow the Lambert prize,— a tes-
timonial to the memory of the most useful writer. The
principal work to win him this distinction-'Le Philosophe sous les
Toits,' was not a piece of brilliant creation, not a learned treatise,
but a sweet-spirited little volume of reflections upon daily life. Upon
its appearance in 1851 the Academy crowned it; and in translation,
'The Attic Philosopher' has long been esteemed by English readers.
The philosopher was Souvestre himself, who knew poverty and hard
work all his life; and accepting both with contagious courage and
cheerfulness, advised his readers to make the best of whatever came.
He tested this philosophy. Born at Morlaix in Finisterre in 1806,
he passed his childhood and youth there; and grew intimately famil-
iar with Breton life and scenery. Next he studied law at Rennes,
where he tried unsuccessfully to practice. He was about twenty-four
when he went to Paris, hoping to make his way in literature. It has
been said that in Paris every would-be author is forced to discover his
own value; and after a stay there, many retire in sad self-knowledge.
Souvestre was stimulated by the richer intellectual life. His individ-
uality was too strong to be submerged. He remained a thorough
Breton, distance giving him a more definite appreciation of his
early home.
The sudden death of his brother, a sea captain, made him the
only support of his family; and he was obliged to return to Brittany,
where he became clerk in a large publishing-house at Nantes. During
the next uncertain years he wrote short articles for local journals.
For a time he was associated with a M. Papot in the management of
a school. He then became editor of a Brest newspaper. In 1835 he
returned to Paris, where his Breton tales soon made him a name.
During his comparatively short life of forty-eight years he wrote
more than forty books, comprising plays, short stories, and historical
works.
Like his great compatriot, the early realist Le Sage, one of Sou-
vestre's primary qualities was clear common-sense. Usual, universal
sentiments appealed to him more than romantic eccentricities. Like
another great Breton, Ernest Renan, he was deeply occupied with the
## p. 13694 (#520) ##########################################
13694
ÉMILE SOUVESTRE
question of religion. His stories, most of which reflect Breton life,
are often true tales told him by the peasants; and all have the quali-
ties of reality and religious feeling.
His greatest work, 'Les Derniers Bretons,' was an exposition of
Breton life, with all its traditions, sentiments, and modes of thought
and action. He felt that many tales traditionary among the poor
were in danger of being lost; and he hated to see them die from the
people's memory. He felt too that this folk-lore was of historical
value as a spontaneous revelation of a mental and moral attitude.
As he points out, the Eastern fairy tale, full of gorgeous color and
material delight, has little in common with the Breton tales, with
their curious mingling of shrewdness and sentiment, their positive
concern over and belief in the reward of virtue and retribution of
Both compositions reflect their authors. In his 'Le Foyer Bre-
ton,' a collection of folk-lore tales, - he preserved as far as possible
the traditional form of expression. They are full of local saws and
allusions; many are genuine fairy tales, in which kindly and prac-
tical fairies, by removing a series of obstacles, render young lovers
happy. Others evince a true Breton delight in the weird and gro-
tesque, and narrate the horrible fate of those who brave evil spirits
in accursed spots at midnight.
sin.
THE WASHERWOMEN OF NIGHT
From 'Le Foyer Breton'
HE Bretons are children of transgression like the rest, but
they love their dead; they pity those who burn in Purga-
tory, and try to ransom them from the fire of probation.
Every Sunday after mass, they pray for their souls on the spot
where their poor bodies perished.
It is especially in the black month [November] that they per-
form this Christian act. When the forerunner of winter comes
[All-Saints' Day], every one thinks of those who have gone to the
judgment of God. They have masses said at the altar of the
dead, they light candles to them, they confide them to the best
saints, they take the little children to their tombs; and after
vespers, the rector comes out of church to bless their graves.
It is also upon this night that Christ grants some solace to
the dead, and permits them to revisit the homes in which they
lived. There are then as many dead in the houses of the living
## p. 13695 (#521) ##########################################
ÉMILE SOUVESTRE
13695
as there are yellow leaves in the rough roads. Therefore true
Christians leave the table-cloth spread and the fire lighted, that
the dead may take their meals, and warm the limbs stiffened by
the cold of cemeteries.
But if there are true adorers of the Virgin and her Son,
there are also the children of the Black Angel [the Devil], who
forget those who have been nearest their hearts. Wilherm Pos-
tik was one of the latter. His father had quitted life without
having received absolution; and as the proverb says, "Kadion
is always the son of his father. " Therefore he cared only for
forbidden pleasures, danced during church-time when he could,
and drank during mass with beggarly horse-jockeys. Yet God
had not failed to send him warnings. In one year he had seen an
ill wind strike his mother, his sisters, and his wife; but he had
consoled himself for their deaths by inheriting their property.
The rector vainly warned him in sermon, that he was a
subject of scandal to all the parish. Far from correcting Wil-
herm, this public advice had only the result of making him give
up church, as might easily have been foreseen; for it is not by
snapping the whip one brings back a runaway horse. So he set
about living more as he chose than ever,- as faithless and law-
less as a fox in the brush.
Now it happened in that time that the fine days came to
an end, and the feast of the dead arrived. All baptized folk put
on their mourning-garments, and went to church to pray for the
dead; but Wilherm dressed himself in his best, and took the road
to the neighboring town.
All the time the others spent in relieving souls in pain, he
passed there drinking brandy with the sailors, and singing verses
composed by the millers [i. e. , coarse songs]. He did this until
nearly midnight; and did not think of returning until the others.
grew weary of wrong-doing. He had an iron constitution for
pleasure; and he left the inn the last one, as steady and active
as when he had entered.
But his heart was hot with drink. He sang aloud along the
road, songs which usually even the boldest would only whisper;
he passed the crucifixes without lowering his voice or lifting his
hat; and he struck the thickets of broom with his stick right and
left, without fear of wounding the souls which fill the ways upon
that day.
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ÉMILE SOUVESTRE
He thus reached a crossway from which there were two paths
to his village. The longer was under the protection of God,
while the shorter was haunted by the dead. Many people cross-
ing it by night had heard noises and seen things of which they
did not speak, except when with others and within reach of holy-
water. But Wilherm feared only thirst; therefore he took the
shortest path, where his clogs clattered on the pebbles.
Now the night was moonless; the wind rattled down the leaves,
the springs rolled sadly along the bank, the bushes shivered like
a man in fear; and in the silence, Wilherm's steps sounded like
those of giants: but nothing frightened him, and he kept on.
As he passed the old ruined manor, he heard the weather-
cock, which said to him:—
"Go back, go back, go back! >>
Wilherm went on his way. He reached the cascade, and the
water murmured:
"Do not pass, do not pass, do not pass! "
He set his foot on the stones polished by the stream, and
crossed. As he reached a worm-eaten oak, the wind whistling
through the branches repeated: -
"Stay here, stay here, stay here! "
But Wilherm struck the dead tree with his stick, and hurried on.
At last he entered the haunted valley. Midnight sounded
from three parishes. Wilherm began to whistle the tune of
'Marionnik. ' But just as he was whistling the fourth verse, he
heard the sound of a cart, and saw it coming towards him cov-
ered with a pall.
Wilherm recognized the hearse. It was drawn by six black
horses, and driven by the "Ankon" [phantom of death], who held
an iron whip and repeated ceaselessly:-
――
-
"Turn aside, or I will overturn you. "
Wilherm made way for him without being disconcerted.
"What are you doing here, Paleface? " he demanded boldly.
"I seize and I surprise," answered the Ankon.
"So you are a robber and a traitor? " went on Wilherm.
"I strike without look or thought. "
"That is, like a fool or a brute. But why are you in such a
hurry to-day? "
"I am seeking Wilherm Postik," answered the phantom, pass-
ing by.
## p. 13697 (#523) ##########################################
ÉMILE SOUVESTRE
13697
The merry Wilherm burst out laughing, and went on.
As he reached the little hedge of blackthorn which led to the
washing-place, he saw two women in white who were hanging
linen on the bushes.
"Upon my life! here are some girls who are not afraid of
the dew," said he. "Why are you out so late, little doves? "
"We are washing, we are drying, we are sewing," answered
the two women at once.
"But what? " asked the young man.
"The shroud of a dead man who still talks and walks. "
"A dead man! My faith! What is his name? "
"Wilherm Postik. "
The fellow laughed louder than at first, and went on down
the rough little path. But as he advanced, he heard more and
more distinctly the blows of wooden beetles against the stones;
and soon he could see the washerwomen of night pounding their
grave-clothes, as they sang the sad refrain:-
"Unless a Christian our doom can stay,
Until Judgment Day we must wash away;
To the sound of the wind, in the moon's pale light,
We must wash and wash our grave-clothes white. "
As soon as they saw the merry fellow, all cried out and ran
up to him, offering him their winding-sheets and asking him to
wring them out.
"That's too trifling a service to be refused among friends,"
answered Wilherm gayly: "but one at a time, fair washerwomen;
a man has only two hands for wringing as well as for embracing. "
Then he set down his stick, and took the end of the shroud
which one of the dead women offered him; being careful to twist
the same way she did, for he had learned from old people that
thus only could he escape being broken to pieces.
But as the shroud was thus turning, behold, the other washer-
women surrounded Wilherm; and he recognized his aunt, his
wife, his mother, and his sisters. They all cried, "A thousand
curses on him who lets his people burn in hell! A thousand
curses!
